Perspectives on the beautiful game of soccer; fueled by enormous amounts of coffee

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

De Ro's force

Dwayne De Rosario has no goals this season but that doesn't mean he does not possess a lethal shot.De Rosario's failed bicycle kick against Chivas USA on Saturday struck Lawson Vaughn's face. Vaughn left the game and is now out 4-6 weeks. De Rosario's blow broke Vaughn's nose in several places and also opened a gash that required 32 stitches to close.I'm supposed to talk to the Law later this morning so I'll let you know what he says about the injury.

Lawson's required surgery to fix. Claudio needs surgery too but he elected to postpone his until December, but apparently Lawson's was more severe and he didn't have that option. They are also calling it a "facial fracture" so it sounds pretty severe.

Alecko went to Germany but didn't need to have the surgery, which is good and bad. Don't count on him for Sunday though and probably not against DC on the 17th either. I will be writing an Alecko update this week for MLSnet.com so look out for that.

I did not see the game so I have a question. Did DeRo get a yellow card for dangerous play? I would think if someone is close enough to get their face bashed in, a player shouldn't be attempting a bicycle. I'm just curious.

A broken nose could simply mean that there's a slight crack in one bone whereas a "facial fracture" is indicative of a more severe situation. I assume the same team of doctors had examined both Claudio and Lawson and then made the determination of treatment accordingly. Apparently, Lawson's injury required immediate attention.

I also think MLS should review the game tape and decide: 1. whether any disciplinary action should be taken vs DeRo and/or the ref and 2. whether there should be some focused attention to protect players against these types of dangerous (particularly bicycle) kicks. I believe, last year, Tayor Twellman actually made such a kick inside the box, endangering the defenders, but getting a lot of press for the spectacular.

Lastly, I also agree Lawson has been under-rated AND under-valued by Chivas USA. Last year (July/August timeframe), when Nags went down and the team was struggling, Preki moved Lawson to central midfield in wins at NY, at Toronto and the first win vs the Gals to start the drive to the Western title. Probably, a good idea to move him there when he returns.

Chivas seems to have players to fill in on the backline -- Jim Curtain, Chris Pozniak and Dan Gargan -- so that (backline defense) shouldn't be a major concern going into this weekend. Furthermore, both Jim and Chris played well enough this past weekend to help contribute to the shutout.

Wicky is just coming off an injury and, as a left-sided player, may be most effective on the outside -- like Becks on the right for the Gals.

Lawson probably has some of the best defensive skills on the team and has shown some awesome passing skills as well. Just seems like his presence in midfield would alleviate some pressure off the backline while enhancing the attack. Last year that translated into wins. Hoping for a speedy recovery regardless.

i was looking at all the goals scored on chivas so far this year and i found a good handfull that were caused by bad clearances by lawson. (three of them via a cleared ball that went straight up in the air)

in response to the "just for the record" post: IMO and you can put this on the record too, the comment is unfair and inaccurate. why not blame the player who allowed the shot that had to be cleared in the first place or perhaps the player that didn't agressively follow-up to defend the cleared ball? for example, there are a number of commentators that faulted brad on gordon's goal in the gals game. another faulted sasha for allowing donovan so much space so close to goal on another. it's a team sport and one should be careful in blaming individuals.